


Let No Hand Put Asunder

by foundCarcosa



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-02
Updated: 2011-11-02
Packaged: 2017-10-25 15:39:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bumbling of the weary mind and clumsy hands cannot ruin the work of the earnest heart. Tino has left, but what fate has joined together... [Written 13 May 2011]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let No Hand Put Asunder

The flames guttering behind the grate and the lilting castrati-esque vocals from the stereo wove a spell over and around Berwald, loosened the long fingers that clutched the bottle and loosened the knot of ever-present tension in his gut. The too-familiar pang in his side returned when he tossed on the mattress, and he knew the vodka was bad, knew the not-eating was worse, knew he was falling apart, but _couldn’t remember to care_.

” _Styrke, bror_ ,” the Dane had murmured with a hand upon his blue-clad shoulder. “ _Styrke_ ,” but Berwald had seen the ghost of old wounds in his eyes and had left him be after that. He didn’t dare bring his woes to men that remembered the pain he, himself, had caused them.

Sequestered in his home, surrounded by the fathomless and unforgiving sea, eyes rolling back in his fevered head as the vocals crested to a pitch that brought the sting of tears—

 _Strength didn’t live here anymore._

He dressed well when he left home, all pressed shirts and brushed hair, spotless glasses, his reflection in the toes of his shoes. But he made eye contact less and less, because voices changed and grew more hushed, more apologetic, when they saw. He closed the windows to his soul because _no one else had rights to peek in_.  
He was stoic and patient at the shoppes and the bars, continued to haunt the places that bore his imprint, showed himself when it was prudent. As far as the world at large was concerned… business went on as usual. The world continued to turn on its axis, and Berwald Oxenstierna knew his place in its grand design.

But when his front door closed and his shoulders rolled forward and his trembling hand dropped the keys onto the carpet with a muffled clatter… the world knew to leave him be, for the game of charades was done.

Strength didn’t live here anymore.  
Not in the rumpled sheets of the bed he sometimes forgot to make. Not in the empty bottles that replaced the remnants of home-cooked meals in the rubbish bin. Not in the forever-trembling hands that painted vodka-scented finger trails over photos in scrapbooks… photos of him, and a cavorting pup, and a sandy-haired, beaming Finn.

The Dane’s love had been a flash in the pan — fiery, passionate, much like the Dane himself. He behaved in kind with the Norwegian, and his libertinism had eventually driven Berwald away. But with Tino, the Swede had been allowed to burn slowly, to cultivate fondness in quick, secret smiles and hands twined over candle flames. Tino’d given him a foundation upon which they built a home.

And then, with neurotic inquisitions and the fleeting, unpredictable rage of a maurader domesticated, with silent brush-offs and hands that were too tight on supple flesh, Berwald carelessly set the home on fire.

 _Tino_ didn’t live here anymore.

The morning after _Island_ ’s music and the haze of mirthless drunkenness lulled the Swede to sleep, he let slip a delicately crafted, blue and yellow-stained vase. The shattering sound and its echo deep in his chest shook him, and he stared in horror at minute, infinite shards of glass on linoleum until their sharp edges blurred.

The afternoon after he broke one of the most beautiful things Tino had given him, Berwald dug too roughly through a sheaf of papers and flinched at the dry _rip_. The document that had suffered from his rough pawing was a forgotten love-note the Finn had left him once during a long day at work. Now its sentiments spread impotently over two jagged-edged sheets, and the Swede let them fall to the floor, too heartsick to push them into the shredder and obliterate them completely.

The evening after he ripped Tino’s words in twain, Berwald slouched in the corner of the sectional, long legs splayed in front of him and his hands limp on his thighs, palms up. He stared at them, as if seeing them for the first time.  
Hands so used to breaking down the integrity between nations that they had forgotten how to build.  
Useless hands. The hands of a saboteur…

When the two-note chime sounded, Berwald didn’t answer. He didn’t want the Dane’s uncertainty, or the Norwegian’s begrudging solidarity.  
When the cautious yet firm knock sounded next, Berwald murmured a curse under his breath and answered.  
When Tino raised soft violet eyes to his own, Berwald shoved his hands deep into pockets that would keep them safely out of reach.

But the Finn’s apologetic voice — _“I’m sorry, I was rash, I shouldn’t have”_ — weaved a spell over and around Berwald, loosening the knot of ever-present tension in his gut the way nothing else could ever. The too-familiar pang in his chest returned when Tino’s arms were tossed around him, and he knew that though the Finn could see the sorrow in his eyes, could see the chagrin that it created, _he never called him weak_.

” _Jag älskar dig,_ ” and Berwald’s shuddering “ _Rakastan sinua_ ” in return, and that which Berwald swore he’d broken with clumsy hands was revealed to have simply been bent by clouded vision.  
“Keep your hands in mine, _rakas_ ; I’ll never leave again.” _A bond forged with the strength of two earnest hearts cannot be broken._


End file.
